i don't know why quitting jobs always has to feel like a bad breakup.

i got collared in the dining hall just now. the Aramark manager wanted me to go speak to the coffee shop manager. i don't know how, and i don't know what to say, because i want to quit, but the manager is possessed of that dreadful mix of sweaty despair and unthinking manipulation which marks the members of middle-management. i was just hired last week to work the weekend shift at the coffee shop -- which weekend shift somehow got expanded into a weekend-and-pre-seminar shift. i worked last weekend, and last week, and i don't want to work there any more. i have to run it by myself entirely on the weekends, and the shifts are too long for that, with too many lulls. people only come by when i'm about to close, and then i'm stuck there late. i left an hour late on sunday night, and was behind in math for the rest of the week.

even the hours wouldn't be so bad if the managment was decent. the coffeeshop here has never been a patch on annapolis pre-aramark, but it's so hideously mismanaged! my god! i don't know why they wouldn't turn it over to a private contractor. allow me, please, to catalogue some of the atrocities:

-- a strange and sickening odor, present every time the large refrigerator door was opened. cause: a large box of portabello mushrooms, intended for use in sandwiches, but sold so infrequently that they were nearly all rotting and spoiled. in training, it was suggested that i just throw away any i encountered which had 'lots of white stuff' on them. those lying atop or beside the rotten ones were still considerd fit to serve, mind. i was also told that i 'might want to pick through them from time to time, because they go bad a lot'. i threw out the whole box on saturday. at least the fridge smelled better. it still had an undernote of soured milk, because i didn't scrub it out.

-- no hot water for hand-washing, or for washing anything else. the boiler in the building went up last winter, and they've yet to replace it.

-- the manager hasn't bothered to ever read the labels of the syrups and mixes for any of the coffee drinks, so i have no idea how long the things labeled 'refrigerate after opening' have been open without refrigeration. he's also been mixing them wrong, resulting in a chai frappe which actually melts tooth enamel.

-- when you run out of change for the day? there's no way of getting more change. at all. also no way of voiding a sale.

-- all the urns of variously-labeled exotic coffees were brewed with espresso beans, last week, because they'd run out of everything else. the labels weren't changed to reflect this, mind: you might have thought you were getting Guatamalan Eco-Reserve or Vienna Roast, but you weren't.

-- uniforms. including hairnets.

-- a grill-cleaning product which requires that the grill be left on its highest setting and then doused with a chemical gel which boils off into a cloud of noxious fumes. there is no fume hood, and there is no way of avoiding said fumes. the grill residues and the chemical residues form a thick, scalding-hot tar which then has to be swabbed up with a towel. i still have burns.

and all of it's aramark's fault, unsurprisingly. i don't particularly mind if corners are cut, and i'm well aware that institutional food service is always going to blow, and i do appreciate how hard a job it is they have -- not aramark itself, perhaps, but certainly their employees.

the coffee shop here appends the dining hall, and refrigerators, kitchenspace, and supplies are shared. this means i got an inside glimpse at the inner workings of the cafeteria, and i'm honestly amazed that MORE people haven't been hospitalised with food poisoning. i already pestered the assistant dean with my tales of work-study woe, and i don't really want to pester her again, but she probably should know. someone should know, at least. my tablemate today got hold of some chicken before i was able to warn him off it. luckily, he didn't end up eating it, as a large feather was protruding from its skin.

i know i can't change any of this while working there, because i'd have no power to do so. i can't work in a place so badly run. yet i don't know how to quit without feeling guilty. it took me three tries to quit trader joe's, and i eventually had to resort to writing a letter, because every time i tried leaving, they sucked me right back in. what should i do? i'm supposed to work again this weekend.